Cllr Hannan Sarwar is a Conservative town councillor in Wilmslow.
Aged 18, Cllr Sarwar is the UK’s youngest Muslim councillor and will be updating readers on his journey through politics.
Finally, the general election is over so every can breathe a sigh of relief!
Election night was incredible and truly unforgettable.
I remember finding out the exit poll from my fellow colleagues as I was busy rushing round watching the votes being counted.
The tireless hours finally paying off, constantly seeing ‘Conservative gain’. A number of the new 109 MPs are the heroes, for many people.
Sleep became a distant memory for many over the last five weeks.
From early morning leaflet deliveries and evening canvassing sessions, thousands of conservative activists plodding the streets raking up the mileage and daily step count campaigning and spreading the conservative message.
All this hard work finally paid of with a conservative majority now in Westminster, with conservative MPs being elected for the first time in many areas or after decades.
Areas such as Don Valley and Leigh – which were Labour since 1922 – saw an influx of first-time conservative voters, breaking the so-called ‘Red Wall’.
The reasoning was clear; the public wanted a government who will deliver Brexit, allowing the country to move forward and focus on our priorities such as more investment in the NHS and increasing police numbers.
Whilst out canvassing in various constituencies one message was very clear, that people could not trust Jeremy Corbyn and the shadow Labour cabinet in government.
It has become apparent that Labour no longer stands up for the working classes.
They were wanting to increase taxes and burden the hard-working taxpayers with unaffordable election promises which were bound to bankrupt the economy.
But not only that, Labour have been telling leave voters that they are wrong and making it clear that they will not honour the democratic result, with even on Friday (20th Dec) Corbyn whipping Labour MPs to vote against the Brexit deal.
Over the last few days we have seen the Labour party descent into an internal civil war, with many of Corbyn’s close allies distancing themselves from his defeat and disastrous policies and placing themselves in the leadership race to be become the new leaders.
One thing that kept us all going was the positive responses on the doorstep. People were coming out in support of Boris and the conservative campaign and lending us their votes.
There were times where people would see my blue conservative rosette and stop their cars to thank us for our hard work.
I had the pleasure of attending various rallies across England in which the prime minister had received fantastic reception.
On the eve before polling day we saw nearly 3,000 activists gather at Olympic Park to witness the final election speech.
I feel one of the main reasons we were successful was that Boris and senior Conservative figures were highly visible, travelling to hundreds of constituencies across the UK.
Unlike 2017, CCHQ have made a real improvement on the social media and on online platforms, and the campaign slogans were short and memorable.
This ensured the conservative message was spread widely and stuck in peoples mind.
This campaign has been like no other. I personally feel that this was a once in a lifetime election and has changed the direction of our country drastically.
We risked undermining the democratic election result of the 2016 referendum and were faced with potentially two further referendums in the space of 12 months.
Thank God this crisis has been averted and we can all have a peaceful Christmas!
So far, we can say Boris Johnson is delivering his promises, but he has got a lot to do to retain votes at the next general election in 2024.
This week we have seen the withdrawal bill being voted on with a majority of 124 votes, meaning the UK is on track to leave the European Union at 11pm on 31st January 2020, restoring faith in our politicians.
The Queen’s Speech was full on new bills, which can now be passed unlike a few months ago when parliament was stuck in deadlock with no majority.
I know many constituents will be impressed to see hospital charges being scrapped for many groups of people and a historic bill enshrining record NHS funding into law.
Credit to Matt Hancock for travelling to nearly 150 constituencies talking about the 40 new hospitals and 50,000 more nurses and thousands of nurse grants being implemented from September 2020.
Boris keeps on saying this parliament is the people’s parliament. Most recently, Boris has banned ministers from attending the Davos summit.
A senior tory figure has said: “Our focus is on delivering for the people, not champagne with billionaires”. This stance is absolutely required and is correct.
The conservative party needs to ensure we live up to our promises and honor the trust voters have put into us.
It is encouraging to see the Boris will spread wealth across the country levelling up funding and starting infrastructure projects across the North and stricter laws to ensure we maintain law and order, keeping the most serious offenders in prison for longer.
Contact Cllr Sarwar…
If residents in my ward have anything they need to discuss they can get in touch with me.
Email: hannansarwar@wilmslow-tc.org.uk
If you want to keep up to date with what I am doing, you can follow my various social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, website.
